By curbing their use, the pact has also cut in half the amount of greenhouse warming that would have occurred by 2010 had these substances continued to build unabated in Earth’s atmosphere, according to the study published in the this week's online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The amount of warming that was avoided is equivalent to 7 to12 years of an increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.

"The participants in the Montreal Protocol have done something very good for our climate," says study author and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist David Fahey. "While addressing ozone depletion, they also provided an early start on slowing climate change."

The quantity of greenhouse gas curbed by the Montreal Protocol is equivalent to five times the reduction target for the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, a 2005 international agreement to address climate change, according to Fahey and his colleagues.